Free Business Proposal Template and Tips to Win More Deals in 2018

Writing a professional business proposal is a key skill to learn to succeed in B2B sales. This article provides you with a free business proposal template to help you win more business. We also provide you with access to 40 more powerful business proposal templates from Proposify.

If you want to improve your win rate, consider using a business proposal tool. We recommend Proposify, which has been designed for small business and comes with over 40 different proposal templates for you to choose from.

Free Business Proposal Templates

(Note: If you download Google Slides or the PDF, youcan copy and save, then edit the content as you wish)

For a basic business proposal template, open either of the left hand options. If you open the Google Slides option, you can Save As and then customise as your own to suit your needs. To improve your win rate, we recommend checking out Proposify, the option on the right-hand side.

Proposify is much easier to use than Slides and the proposal templates are much better designed too. More importantly, it comes with lots of powerful features to help you win more deals. Like dynamic pricing menus, email-open alerts, signup and pay deposits online. We recommend trying a no obligation free 30-day trial.

How to Improve Your Proposal Win Rate

Now you have access to good tools and a range of free business proposal template options. The next step is to make sure that your process gives you the best chance of closing more deals. Let’s take a look at each key step in turn:

Step 1 – Post Pitch Follow-Up

Let’s assume that your customer has asked you to provide them with a cost proposal. The first step to improving your win rate in to have a follow-up meeting with your customer following a successful sales pitch. Your customer will make this time for you, and you can use it to make sure that any objections they may have are properly covered off. You can also discuss price so that there are no surprises when your cost proposal turns up. Your cost proposal should ideally just be a more detailed version of what you have already verbally agreed.

Step 2 – Choose a Business Proposal Template

Let’s assume you’ve decided to take a free trial of Proposify. Take a look at the 40 templates and choose the one that is closest to what you are looking for. Select the business cost proposal template that most closely resembles the business proposal template you’re looking for. In the next section, we’ll show you how to customise this so that it precisely matches your needs.

I have selected the event management business proposal template, which I can now preview to confirm that it is the right one for my needs.

Step 3 – Make it Your Own!

So let’s pretend the event management business proposal template most closely matches your needs. Proposify will now ask you to answer some simple questions, which will help the system to project manage your various proposals. For instance, what is your proposal called? When does it have to be delivered by? And who is responsible for leading on this proposal?

Once you’ve done this you are ready to start customising your cost proposal template to meet your needs. Just click the green editor arrow in the top right to move to the next stage, see below.

Now you’ve entered the editor where you can completely customise everything. On the right hand side are the sections of your business proposal template. On the left are the main edit tools, and above are the text editing tools.

As you’ll soon realise, it’s a breeze to edit all of your content in the following ways:

1. Text

Editing text is very similar to doing this in Word docs. Once you have clicked on a text box, like I have in the screengrab below, the text tools become live. Or you can create a new Text Box using the tool on the left hand side of your screen.

2. Images

Changing or adding a new image is very similar to working in WordPress. Click on the image button to access all images and select the image you want to use. To add more images just drag and drop them in from your desktop.

3. Video

It’s also very easy to add video from YouTube or other video platforms. Just click on the video button in the left hand menu and then create a box where you want the video to go using your cursor. Up pops a box where you can cut and paste the link to the video clip and you’re done!

4. Cost Tables

These are very neat and much more powerful than anything you could create using a tool like PowerPoint. Just click on the Cost Table icon in the left hand menu and up pops a table giving you a range of options to customise your table. You can select different types of table format depending on how you bill. For instance there is one of fixed cost projects, one for hourly billing and another for Unit/Quantity billing. You can also use a blend of the different types. And your cost tables automatically total up themselves.

5. Electronic Signatures

Another powerful feature of the tool is the way it allows your customers to provide their electronic signature to formally agree to your proposal. Assuming you have added the contact names of everyone who is going to get the proposal at the start, you can now drag and drop the names of the people who need to sign onto your signature page. Customers can click their signature to confirm commitment and you are immediately informed when they have done so.

Step 4 – Send your Business Proposal

You now have the ability to confirm who the business proposal is send to and add additional contacts if you wish. As you would expect, you can customise the email that goes out and send yourself a test email so that you can check that everything is perform before you actually send it out. You can also setup automatic reminder emails and thank you emails to go once the business proposal is accepted.

Step 5 – Track with Analytics

Another powerful feature of Proposify is that once you have sent your proposal, you can monitor your customer’s activity to see when they open it, which pages they have read and whether they have signed off yet or not.

Step 6 – Follow-up by Phone

Proposify allows you to automate email reminders. But to improve your conversion rate, add that personal touch and give them a phone call if three days have passed and you have not heard from your key contact. This way, if something has cropped up, you make it easy for them to discuss it with you before it’s too late.

Step 7 – Woohoo.. a New Customer Signed-up!

Proposify notifies you once your business proposal is accepted. To improve your win rate, I recommend picking up the phone and thanking them personally for their business. This helps you to keep them 100% committed until they have paid your first invoice. It’s also the right way to may your new customer feel valued.

Step 8 – Onboard your New Customer

Now you have a new customer, it’s important to remember that this is just the start of a new customer relationship. So your next step should be to make sure that your customer onboarding process provides each new customer with a great customer experience.

The Juice Press

In this article, we provided you with a range of business proposal template options. The basic one is fine to use, but if you really want to improve your win rate, we suggest using a business proposal generation tool. We recommend Proposify for small business because it’s easy to use and competitively priced.

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About the Author

Paul is a staff writer for SmallbizJuice, specializing in sales and business development. Over the last 20 years, he has lead several successful small business sales teams, worked as a sales trainer and setup his own small business as the CEO responsible for sales. Outside of work, Paul can be found working out at the gym or coaching his kids’ softball team.